Accel World: The Carbide Wolf

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By Reki Kawahara and Hima. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jocelyne Allen.

After last volume’s short story collection, we’re back to the main plotline, as Silver Crow is (finally) cleared of the accusation of hosting the Chrome Disaster. Of course, now that they know he’s not evil, the leaders all get together to try to use Silver Crow for their own purposes. It’s a very Haruyuki-centric book as he tries to gain a new ability, learns his companion’s tragic backstory, prepares for the upcoming culture festival at school (yes, Accel World has a real life aspect as well), and worst of all, deals with getting utterly humiliated in a duel against a Level 1 who has super strength hard armor. This lets all his previous doubts and self-hatred come to the fore, though thankfully he has allies now who won’t let him slip too far into that. Essentially, it’s a good, solid volume of Accel World.

Kawahara does apologize in the afterword for Haruyuki getting all the character development so far in this series, and promises to work on developing the others soon. It’s a fair point – even Sword Art Online paid more attention to its other cast members than Accel World does at times. We do get to learn more about Utai here, and as a drama major, I appreciated the fact that she came from a family of Noh theatre performers – though that also meant that I could guess why she was so upset as a child, Japanese theatre being very male exclusive. The death of her brother is one of those freak accidents that sounds a bit more ridiculous than it probably was, but once you learn about him, the way he died, and the life she grew up with, almost everything about Ardor Maiden comes into clear focus. If this is the sort of character development we’ll get in the future, I’m looking forward to it.

And then we have the titular Carbide Wolf, aka Wolfram Cerberus. No, he’s not related to Wolfram and Hart from Angel, but he does seem to be related to Accel World’s big bads, the Accelerated Research Society. I enjoy the themes between personality and armor that Kawahara gives us – the name is wolf-themed, the armor has a wolf’s head… and the actual player sounds like a big friendly puppy when he’s dueling other people, or rather when he’d kicking other people’s asses. It’s hard to fight against something when you can’t do damage to it, and that also gives us the opportunity to dwell on various metals – this had also come up earlier, when Haruyuki was being asked to learn about mirrors in order to master a new ability. Haruyuki being who he is, of course, he grows and learns, with the help of some harsh training, and the rematch, though it ends in a cliffhanger, is another solid fight scene.

Accel World has always been the more consistently written of Kawahara’s two series, and that remains the case here. There’s occasionally some tortured exposition (the animal club member teaching Haruyuki about the different kinds of reflective mirrors really seemed like a reach to me), and Haruyuki’s self-deprecation can wear on the anime fan who wants all cool all the time, but overall this is another very good entry in the series.

Hayate the Combat Butler, Vol. 30

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By Kenjiro Hata. Released in Japan as “Hayate no Gotoku!” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Shonen Sunday. Released in North America by Viz. Translated by John Werry.

This is the first volume of Hayate the Combat Butler to be released in North America after the manga has already ended in Japan, and it will be interesting to see how it does going forward. (ominous thunder rumbles in distance) We are, of course, nowhere near finished here in North America, where Hayate is not quite Kaze Hikaru, but pretty close. Last time we were discussing how long Hata would drag things out before Hayate’s true gender was finally revealed to Ruka, and we get an answer here. It’s actually a good question when you’re dealing with Hata, who is a master – for good and ill – at dragging things out long past when you’d expect the punchline or point to be. Sometimes this works well for comedic effect, sometimes it feels like his editors are forcing him to extend things forever, and sometimes you sense he’s a bit of a troll.

The missing suitcase of money is dealt with fairly quickly at the start (and does a good job of inserting Fumi and Sharna, everyone’s favorite characters (it’s a shame sarcasm is hard to show in text), into the narrative. The majority of the volume, though, continues the interlocking narrative of Nagi and Ruka’s doujinshi competition. Ruka gets the benefit of a stern critic in Hina, who not only gives her honest opinion about what’s wrong, but goes on to do research into popular kinds of manga so that she can give better advice. Hina is a good, honest girl who I sometimes feel deserves better than this comedy harem manga. Speaking of girls who deserve better than this, Nagi has Ayumu giving advice, and while it’s not nearly as good, it does seem to inspire her. Whether this will actually lead to good manga remains to be seen.

And yes, Ruka does eventually find out that Hayate is a guy. The reaction is more low-key than I was expecting, but then Ruka in general tends to be more low-key than I’d expect. As a late arrival harem girl, you can’t avoid the sense that she’s being added to the narrative because the series is too popular to wrap up this quickly – Hayate may be a twice-a-year series here, but it did really well in Japan, and there are references in the volume to the movie Heaven Is a Place on Earth, which was due out in 2011 when this volume came out. (Yes, we are now six years behind.) I like Ruka, but there’s not really much she adds as a romantic lead that Hayate could not also get from Hina, or Ayumu, or Maria, or Athena. Or Nagi, I will reluctantly add, but we’ll get to that 20 volumes down the road.

And so Hayate the Combat Butler’s strengths remain its humor, and its romance can be a strength or a weakness depending on Hata’s writing. We get a bit of both in this volume, making it a fairly average volume in the series. See you in the winter for Vol. 31.

Also, the back cover says that Ruka is ‘plumb worn out’, and I feel sad that they didn’t go whole hog and say ‘plumb tuckered out’.

Invaders of the Rokujouma!?, Vol. 6

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By Takehaya and Poco. Released in Japan as “Rokujouma no Shinryakusha!?” by Hobby Japan. Released in North America digitally by J-Novel Club. Translated by Warnis.

First off, going back to my worries from the last review, I am delighted to see that Yurika’s character development from the previous book is not only kept but noticed by others. Yes, she is still sometimes the butt of the joke – this is a comedy, after all – but she’s far more content with her lot in life now, talking easily with Koutarou and realizing that using her abilities secretly so that no one knows about it may actually be the best thing she can do right now. The other cast members are also keeping their growth – Koutarou is noticeably less formal with Harumi here, and the cast is all starting to realize they’re in love with Koutarou without having it become their defining trait, always a worry in harem titles. Rokujouma may be light as air at times, but there’s more depth here than I was expecting.

Of course, sticking with the ‘heroine is the cover girl of the previous book’ rule, the main focus here is on Kiriha, the last of the ‘main girls’ in the room to be fleshed out, provided you’re not counting Harumi, who’s sort of the plus one in this situation. (I’m not sure if Shizuka is going to do anything but be the landlord who knows lots of martial arts – she certainly gets more do do in this book than usual, but her feelings for Koutarou are not brought up.) Kiriha has been the teasing older woman sort in the series, but naturally we discover that this is mostly a front to disguise her true motives, which are actually pretty pure and noble given she was supposed to be a vanguard for a race trying to invade the Earth’s surface. In reality, what she has in mind is more like immigration than anything else, and Koutarou is relieved to discover this.

She also has a childhood dream she wants to fulfill, as when she was a kid she ran away to the surface and met a young man who she immediately fell in love with. Now, I have been saying how much I enjoy Rokujouma here, but it does have a few downsides, and the biggest one is that it’s about as subtle as a brick to the head. Time travel has not really come up yet in the series, though given the amount of weird tech we’ve seen so far it would be no surprise. Also no surprise is the fact that the boy Kiriha fell for all those years ago is clearly ‘our’ Koutarou, who no doubt will find a way to slip back in time in some future book. Then again, I’m not sure that subtlety and mysteries are what the author is going for here. I think we’re meant to be winking along with the narrative.

Of all the ‘light, fluffy romance series with no real point’ I’ve been reading in light novel form, Rokujouma is probably my favorite. It’s always a relaxed, easy read, and some of its jokes made me laugh out loud this time (particularly Koutarou’s reaction to the five-team sentai squad when they first show up). If you don’t mind harems, it’s an excellent light novel starting point.